Mar 08
Making your business cards dynamic in Illustrator
2007 at 10.14 pm posted by Veerle
Do you often have to create a page filled with the same business cards, stickers etc. nicely arranged ready to go to the printer? You know you don’t have to copy and drag them “manually” on the page. There is a much smarter way of doing this…
Step 1 - Create your business card and group all objects
First create your business card with crop marks and everything all set. When finished group all objects.
Step 2 - Apply a Transform Effect
Select your business card and go to the Effects menu. Go to Distort & Transform and choose Transform. Check the Preview option so you see the effect live. Enter 3 in the copies field, -65 mm in the vertical field under the Move option. So we're duplicating the card 2 times under each other.
Step 3 - Apply a 2nd Transform Effect on top
Now, we're going to add a 2nd effect on top of this one to have this column duplicated to the right. With the original card still selected, go to the Transform effect again and ignore the alert message box, because normally you don't go to the same effect twice. You use the Appearance Palette instead and edit from there. In this case however, we ignore the warning and click "Apply New Effect". Enter 1 in the copies field and make sure Preview is checked again so you see what happens. Enter 92 mm in the horizontal field under the Move option. Woohoo! Look at that! A whole page of cards! But wait, it's not done yet :)
Step 4 - Watch the magic
Now, just to show it's magic and power, edit the name of the business card or any other data. All cards are updated automatically! Cool isn't it? If you want to move the cards. It'll move all duplicates as well, that's also very handy.
Step 5 - Create a Graphic Style for later reuse
There is more magic to show. Select the card again and drag it into the Graphic Styles palette. You've now created a style that you can apply to any other business card with the same dimensions. If you create a new card, group all objects, select the new card and select this new style you've just created in the Graphic Styles palette, it'll automatically duplicate your new card and create a full sheet of cards! What a time safer that is! :)
I've used this technique a lot for stickers and business cards and it has saved me a lot of time instead of duplicating them "manually".
All credits of this article go to Collin Smith from Adobe. To my knowledge he invented this technique a few years back. This technique works in version CS or later.
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48served
1
How handy! You pulled me out of lurking status with this one… :)
2
Wow! I use transform each all the time, but I didn’t know they could be used as effects as well. Good to know
(but I would’ve put single trims between the cards personally ;o)
3
Oooh! Great tutorials! Thanks Veerle.
4
I have always been curious how to achieve this in illustrator. There had to be an easier way that creating guides and spacing each one!
Thanks so much for this write-up.
5
This is great - production tips are so valuable. Illustrator has loads of these hidden gems but sometimes they’re very hard to uncover. I am glad you showed me to look beyond the Transform function (Object menu).
6
These tips are really great! Simple and yet something I never would’ve discovered on my own. While I really enjoy your other articles I think this one got me out of lurking as well ;)
7
Ahh another great tip and its come just in time for me as i’m set to go to the printers with some new business cards next week.
8
Wow… That is one awesome tip… I could have used this quite a few times.
9
That’s pure genius, thanks for sharing! Anything to make the boring bits of Illustrator less time-consuming…
10
This is a great tip. I have to bookmarks this. I’m still learning Illustrator and I know that this tip will come in handy. And like everyone else, this post has pulled me out of lurking too.
11
YES! I think we’ve found a Stargate fan!
12
I love this kind of tips, short and super useful…
Thank you!
13
wow, awesome! and a very strange coincidence that i was designing a business card this very moment!
thanks so much!
14
I often see my colleague right next to me fiddling around with business cards or stickers on an Illustrator page.
Maybe I’ll tell her this next time. Maybe ...
;D
15
For me it was funny to see the exact businesscard you are using for this article laying on my desk ;), just a few inches away from the monitor. It’s a small world ;).
(Only the name differs, mine says Jesper ;))
16
Priceless. This tip will increase my productivity for sure, thanks.
17
Excellent little trick that - I probably won’t need it for professional print - I let my printer set the pagination, but as a step and repeat tool, that is a great tip!
18
Thanks!!! very useful.
19
Very slick, but what is the reasoning behind setting up duplicate cards like this when preparing business cards for print?
In the past I have just provided the printer with one .eps with crop marks for the front of the card and a separate .eps file for the back.
20
Nice find :) I used to do this with ‘Oject > Transform > Move > Copy’ (Shift+Cmd+M) and then pressed Cmd+D a couple of times to repeat that action (first horizontally, then vertically). Your technique is faster.
21
Impressive… very efficient.
22
thank you, thank you, very nice :) can’t wait to implement :p the technique :)
23
wow. I had no idea you could duplicate business cards like that. I have always copied and pasted as a group, and trying to set up the guides for each one was monstrous. This will be a reason to upgrade my version of Illustrator too!
Thanks again for another amazing and helpful tip.
24
excellent method, very clever and quick - thanks, Veerle ;)
25
Very nice and extremely useful one ! =O)
I am quite impressed, and some friends who works with Illustrator will appreciate it greatly.
26
Very nice and usefull tip!
Thanks
27
Great! I didn’t know about this feature! Thanks. :-)
28
I tried this and it works great :D
How would i then go about manipulating the set of objects, not just the individuals?
29
Good article, as a designer (web or graphic) it’s always important to use your time effectively. So I think this is a great example
30
Thanks for the useful tips! Like it!
31
very handy indeed, I use Indesign for these kind of things, but this is another way to do it ! thx for the tip
32
It’s usefull allright, but usually the DTP guy does this, so I only send the main layout of the business card.
Anyway. Good tip. I never knew that you can do that with transform.
33
As a printer, I use this technique all the time. I have a template with crop marks set up, also using this technique.
However I didn’t know about dragging it to the Graphic Styles template. Cool.
To J: I’m willing to bet that your printer does the same thing with your .eps file after you give it to them. Because a business card takes up such little space, it saves paper to print 8 or 10 on a sheet and cut them apart.
34
@Alex Buga and J, these days I usually export a PDF from either Illustrator or InDesign because that’s what “my” printer prefers me to do, but a lot of printers prefer that you deliver them a page filled just like Paul for example. I guess it depends from printer to printer. Also for printing at home it can be handy I think.
35
This is fabulous - thanks for the tip!
36
Those “crop marks” what are they for? I’m assuming the small lines in the corners are not supposed to be there when cut?
37
great great tips, i`m out of lurking now :)
38
I gatta thank you,’couse I learn from you so much,and your design is so good! Specially your Christmas desktop ,that is amazing!
39
Veerle you can write own guide for designers. The whole blog is a guide :)
40
This is Awesome. Thanks for the sweet tips ;) (Also - your site design is amazing, keep up the good work! It flows so perfectly)
41
Very cool! I will use that when making fliers.
42
Thank you so much for that! I just wish I’d read it two weeks ago. I guess I’ll have to make some other business cards to try it out on. Your tips are always useful.
43
Damon Stephenson said:
These lines are there as precise marks on where to crop the cards after printing. The word says exactly its meaning “marks to crop”. So yes, these lines should exactly be there so you know where to crop. Of course the lines will be cut off in the end, they are on the outside area of the card.
Glad you all enjoy this tip so much. It’s actually Collin Smith from Adobe we have to than, here.
44
Lordy… by mind is reeling. Brilliant trick, Veerle!
45
This works great, but I’m a bit of an Illustrator newbie and am having trouble “flattening” my file for output as PDF or EPS.
The transformed duplicates don’t show up, am I missing something?
-Justin
46
Justin Pardee said:
Not sure what you do wrong here :-/ I’ve done some tests and even saving to an EPS version 9 doesn’t give me the result of what you are saying, same if I save to PDF version 1.3. Normally you just do “save as”, select PDF or EPS from the dropdown and then choose the necessary EPS or PDF version and that’s it. Nothing special is needed. You can of course always expand the appearance right before exporting to avoid this weirness from happening. Select the object and go to the Object menu and choose Expand Appearance. Your original AI file will still have the appearance in tact, so it’s only for exporting. Further than that I really don’t know what goes wrong and how to help you I’m afraid. It’s just weird that this happens.
47
that’s cool!
48
So simple! I had no idea this was there the whole time I was doing the “measure/guide/copy/paste/change/change/change” shuffle. Thanks so much!